Hi everyone. Very new here and was just wanting to get some advice or see if anyone has felt the same. I have severe health anxiety and it is starting to affect my work life, as well and my home and personal life. A few months ago I started having muscle twitches that seem to come and go. In the past few months I have covinced myself that I have ALS, cervical cancer, skin cancer, pancreatic cancer and bladder cancer. I can never relax and cry almost every day. I work in a doctors office and see people, unfortunately, get diagnosed and die.from these terrible diseases. I also worry about my children having every disease imaginable as well. I'm so tired of feeling like this and just wanna be happy. Any advice?

9 Replies

Wow I just reply to someone else's post a minute ago about this. This is my first time hearing of the term health anxiety. . So is this a new development or discovery of anxiety? And from what you are explaining your way of what you go through, I think I may have this same thing. ..I diagnose myslef every time I feel something different or new. I went to the clinic and an urgent care and they have all said my blood work look fine. Nothing that warrants further attention and I just do not believe them. I think they are not telling me enough. I kept thinking of people who had cancer and how they lost so much weight rapidly and I think I have the same things. I can't sleep my appetite has decreased and it's making me even more afraid. My anxiety has never been to this extreme

"Health Anxiety" is just another way to say GAD Generalized anxiety disorder... essentially it means that for no reason you get honed in what your body is doing, say for instance for me it's my heart and as well all know your heart rate really increases with anxiety, so it's warranted me to go get every test I could to try and find something wrong.. they say nothing but here i am still convinced. Hopefully you get the gist of what health anxiety technically is

You may have a loss of appetite because of anxiety and then weight loss. If you feel healthy and blood work healthy, you are healthy. I do that with doctors though , thinking they missed something. This health anxiety is scary. I feel like I'm gonna die from the stress of worrying about a disease. I know this is obsessive thinking , just hard to control . lynn

And yes not to mention I worry worry worry. About my health, my kids as well. I cry so much. Every time I think about them and how I'm so afraid to die I get emotional and cry. I cry just constantly. I know exactly how you feel

I am so sorry that you are going through the same thing! It's awful! I had a panic attack earlier today and was shaking and thinking I was going go die from a multitude of diseases. My 16 yr old had to calm me down. Yes, it is a fairly new concept. The doctor i work for calls it Generalized Health Anxiety and it's a severe anxiety. Everyone tells me that I look perfectly healthy and my bloodwork is fine so I have no idea. Just feel so scared. I am trying to find some type of support group in my area to see if that will help at all.

I definitely agree this is awful. I have no peace of mind. I work myslef to a panic every time I feel something or get a rush come over me. I pretty much constantly am thinking I am or have a serious illness and the doc just haven't found it yet. It consumes my mindset badly. Plus now that I'm always getting dizzyand feeling light headed it keeps me on edge because I feel like it's more than just anxiety that can cause someone to have these symptoms.

Sean, the doc I work for, says that anxiety can make you feel like your dying and it does. For 6 months he wants me to keep a journal of all my symptoms and problems. If it is something serious, which I am afraid of, he says we will deal with it but I am constantly scared and hardly ever sleep. My kids, boyfiend and I went on a weeks vacation earlier in July and I couldn't even enjoy it. I had to find the hospital as soon as we got there as well as urgent care.....just in case. Drove him crazy.

This has been happening to be for the past 2 weeks I haven't gone to the doctors I feel scared I hope nothing is wrong with me . I'm trying to sleep and I feel my body getting super tired and shutting down and then boom I get this little shock or some type of anxiety . It never happens when during the day only while I'm trying to sleep I just hate it and then sometimes when I wake up my heart rate is going kinda fast . Idk if I have high blood pressure or what.

After reading this , I thought it was my own story except I'm a hairdresser. Nice to meet you. I have seen many doctors for many fears , then I'm not sure of the doctors , and I'm thinking they missed something. Very hard to shake it , I just talk to Jesus and ask him to take it away. Keep in touch and God Bless